Archives For environment

There’s some good news on the endangered species front: Three species of endangered African antelopes — the Scimitar-Horned Oryx, Addax, and Dama Gazelle — are coming back with a vengeance. At least in Texas, where the population of the three antelope species quadrupled from 2004 to 2010, growing to a combined total of around 17,000.

What’s the secret? Private property rights and markets. In 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which administers the Endangered Species Act (ESA), created a blanket exception from the ESA’s “taking” prohibition for captive-bred U.S. antelope. FWS recognized that the rare African antelopes have great value to trophy hunters and, accordingly, to ranchers who are able set aside ideal habitat for the creatures. The prospect of hefty bounties — up to $10,000 per antelope — has encouraged the formation of private preserves, much to the benefit of the three endangered species.

Unfortunately, an environmental organization operating under the misnomer “Friends of Animals” sued to stop hunting of the antelopes on private preserves. “Hunting these antelope is no way to save them or treat them with dignity,” proclaimed the Friends of Animals vice-president (apparently ignoring the data on the antelopes’ population explosion in Texas).

Today’s WSJ reports that Friends of Animals has procured new rules that will require exotic ranchers to obtain costly individual take permits for every instance of hunting. Faced with the prospect of having to navigate the costly and time-consuming permit process, many exotic ranchers are considering whether to abandon their antelope operations altogether. If they do so, we can expect the worldwide population of these antelope species to dwindle. Yet another consequence of our perverse Endangered Species Act, which renders listed species a liability to landowners (thereby encouraging a “shoot, shovel, and shut up” strategy) and fights all efforts to encourage market-based conservation efforts.

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According to the United Nations, sometime around Halloween a newborn baby will push the world’s population above seven billion people. Welcome to our spectacular planet, Little One!

I should warn you that not everyone will greet your arrival as enthusiastically as I. A great many smart folks on our planet—especially highly educated people in rich countries like my own—have fallen under the spell of this fellow named Malthus, who once warned that our planet was “overpopulated.” Although Mr. Malthus’s ideas have been proven wrong time and again, his smart and influential disciples keep insisting that your arrival spells disaster, that this lonely planet just can’t support you.

Now my own suspicion is that modern day Malthusians, who are smart enough to know that actual events have discredited their leader’s theories, continue to parrot Mr. Malthus’s ideas because they lend support to all manner of governmental intervention into private affairs. (These smarty-pants Malthusians, who are well-aware of their own intelligence, tend to think they can arrange things better than the “men and women on the spot” and are constantly looking for reasons to go meddling in others’ business!) Whatever their motivation, Mr. Malthus’s disciples just won’t shut up about how our planet is overpopulated.

You should know, though, that this simply isn’t true. The first time you hear one of Mr. Malthus’s followers decrying your very existence by insisting that our planet is overpopulated, you should ask him or her: “Overpopulated relative to what?” Modern Malthusians can never give a good answer to that question, though they always try.

Sometimes they say “living space.” But that’s plain silly. Our planet is really pretty huge. Indeed, if all seven billion people on the planet moved to the state ofAlaska, each person would have 2,300 square feet of living space! Now I realize lots of cities get crowded, but that’s because people choose to live in those areas—they’ve decided that the benefits of enhanced economic opportunity in a densely populated area outweigh the costs of close confines. If they really wanted extra living space, they could easily find it in our planet’s vast uninhabited (or sparsely inhabited) regions.

Sometimes modern day Malthusians say the planet is overpopulated relative to available food. Wrong again. In the nations of the world where institutions have evolved to allow people to profit from coming up with new ideas that enhance welfare, individuals have developed all sorts of ways to get more food from less land. Accordingly, food production has always outpaced population growth. Now, modern day Malthusians will probably tell you that food prices have been rising in recent years — a sign that food is getting scarcer relative to people’s demand for it. But that’s because governments, beholden to powerful agricultural lobbyists, have been requiring that huge portions of agricultural output be diverted to fuel production even though the primary biofuel (ethanol) providesno environmental benefit. As usual, it’s actually bad government policy, not population growth, that’s creating scarcity.

In recent days, Mr. Malthus’s disciples have insisted that the world is overpopulated relative to available resources. Nothing new here. Back in the 1970s, lots of smart folks contended that the earth was quickly running out of resources and that drastic measures were required to constrain continued population growth. One of those smarty pants was Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, who, along with his wife Anne and President Obama’s science czar John Holdren, asked (in all seriousness): “Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?” (See Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich & John P. Holdren, Ecoscience 838 (1977).) (Ehrlich also proclaimed, in his 1968 blockbuster The Population Bomb, that “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”)

In 1980, Prof. Ehrlich bet economist Julian Simon (a jolly fellow who would have welcomed your birth!) that the booming population would raise demand for resources so much that prices would skyrocket. Mr. Simon thought otherwise and therefore allowed Prof. Ehrlich to pick five metals whose price he believed would rise over the next decade. As it turns out, the five metals Prof. Ehrlich selected — chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten — fell in price as clever, profit-seeking humans discovered both how to extract more from the earth and how to substitute other, cheaper substances. Mr. Simon was not at all surprised. He recognized that the long-term price trend of most resources points downward, indicating that resources are becoming more plentiful, relative to human needs, over time. (Modern Malthusians may point to some recent price trends showing rising prices for some resources, especially precious metals. It’s likely, though, that those price increases are due to the fact that central banks all over the world have been creating lots and lots of money, thereby threatening inflation and causing investors to hold their wealth in the form of commodities.)

The fundamental mistake Mr. Malthus’s disciples make, Little One, is to assume that our planet is the ultimate source of resources. That’s just not true. Our planet does contain lots of useful “stuff,” but it’s human ingenuity — something only you and those like you can provide — that turns that stuff into “resources.” Take oil, for instance. For most of human history, messy crude oil was a source of annoyance for landowners. It polluted their water and fouled their property. But when whale oil prices started to rise in response to scarcity (or, put differently, when the world started to look “overpopulated” relative to whale oil), some clever, profit-seeking folks discovered how to turn that annoyance into kerosene, and eventually petroleum. Voila! A “resource” was created!

Just as people once worried about overpopulation relative to whale oil supplies, lots of folks now worry about overpopulation relative to crude oil. Well I’m not that worried, and you shouldn’t be either. As oil prices rise, more and more clever profit-seekers will turn their energies toward finding new ways to obtain oil (e.g., hydraulic facturing), new techniques for reducing oil requirements (e.g., enhanced efficiency), and new substitutes for oil (e.g., alternative fuels). Mr. Malthus’s disciples will continue to fret about the limits to growth, but the historical record is clear on this one: Human ingenuity — the ultimate resource — always outpaces the diminution in useful “stuff.”

And so, Little Resource, your arrival on our planet should be celebrated, not scorned! As you and your fellow newborns flex your creative muscle, you’ll develop new sources of wealth for the world. As you do so, birth rates will plummet, as they typically do when societies become wealthier, and the demand for a cleaner environment, demand that rises with wealth, will grow. We therefore need not worry about “overpopulation.”

We do, though, need to ensure the survival of those institutions — property rights, free markets, the rule of law — that encourage resource-creating innovation. I, for one, promise to do my best to defend those institutions so that you and your fellow newborns can add to our planet’s resource base.

Apparently, the detergent industry has entered into what has been described as a “voluntary agreement” to reduce the use of phosphates in detergents (HT: Ted Frank). A press release from Clean Water Action describes the agreement as follows:

On July 1, 2010 a voluntary ban on phosphates in dishwasher detergents will be implemented by many members of the American Cleaning Council (formerly the Soap and Detergent Association), a manufacturer’s trade group representing most detergent companies.”Industry’s announcement on phosphates in dishwasher detergents is welcome news, indeed, if somewhat overdue,” said Jonathan Scott, a spokesman for Clean Water Action, founded in the early 1970’s to fight for clean, safe water. “Even small amounts of phosphates can wreak havoc when they get into our water,” Scott says, “so it’s the last thing you want as an ingredient in detergents, which are specifically designed to end up in the water by way of household appliances and drain pipes.”

It is also apparent that some our none too pleased with the effects of reducing phosphate levels in detergents — with the primary downside being that the new product doesn’t work too well. An article in the Weekly Standard describes the impact of the reduction:

The result is detergents that don’t work very well. There have been a handful of stories in the media about consumer complaints. The New York Times noted that on the review section of the website for Cascade—Procter & Gamble’s market-leading brand—ratings plummeted after the switch, with only 11 percent of consumers saying they would recommend the product. One woman in Florida told National Public Radio that she called Procter & Gamble to complain about how its detergent no longer worked. The customer rep told her to consider handwashing the dishes instead.

Some NPR commenters agreed. “Like so many -others, I had disassembled my dishwasher, run multiple empty ‘cleaning cycles’ using all kinds of various chemical treatments, all trying to get my dishwasher ‘fixed,’ ” said one. “We assumed that something was wrong with the machine, that it was limed up, and we tried vinegar and other remedies with limited success,” wrote another. “We do wash some dishes by hand now, using more hot water than before, and also have simply lowered our standards for what constitutes ‘clean.’ ” Another commenter complained: “I live in AZ and had the same thing happen last year when it was introduced out here. I thought it was a reaction between the ‘Green’ soap and the hard water. I wrote to the company and they sent me about $30 in coupons—for other items and for their non-green soap. I dumped the 3 unopened bottles plus the one I was using.”

The detergents were so problematic that they caused environmental delinquency even among NPR listeners. One disappointed commenter rationalized his backsliding:

We first heard about the new phosphate-free detergent formulations almost a year ago. Wanting to do the Right Thing we rushed out and bought some and immediately began using it. The results, although not as bad as reported by some, were still pretty underwhelming. Our dishes and glassware were covered by a gritty film and so was the inside of the dishwasher. We are in Southern California and have very hard water. Adding vinegar to the rinse cycle helped *some* but still we found excessive buildup on our dishes. Disgusted with the new detergent, we decided to go back to something with phosphate. We were not able to find phosphate detergent at the supermarket, but some local discount stores sell supplies that are apparently remaindered by the manufacturers. We bought six boxes of old Cascade with phosphate—about a year’s supply. We figured someone would buy it—might as well be us.

When Consumer Reports did laboratory testing on the new nil-phosphate detergents, they concluded that none of them “equaled the excellent (but now discontinued) product that topped our Ratings in August 2009.”

There is, of course, an interesting antitrust angle here. Thom has posted previously on another voluntary industry agreement in the soda industry to refrain from selling high calorie soda (and limiting the size of even healthy drinks) in schools. In the comments to that post I suggest that one important issue is whether the soda players actually reached an agreement:

The passing or collective endorsement of a set of “best practices” to which members of the industry can voluntary choose to adhere to or not is not necessarily an actionable antitrust conspiracy. Of course, calling something “voluntary guidelines” won’t immunize an actual agreement if it is there. But it seems that the parties were pretty careful — EXCEPT for in their commercials and in print!!! — to make sure to emphasize that the antitrust-relevant choices were made unilaterally. But I can’t imagine antitrust counsel would have given the thumbs up to the commercials…

So it is here. I’ve no doubt that such an agreement, if it exists, is reachable under Section of the Sherman Act. The question is whether the detergent industry has taken some steps to protect themselves from an “agreement” finding under Section 1. I don’t have enough detail to know whether that is the case — but if anybody does, please send it along.

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That’s the punchline of a recent paper by Pierre Desrochers (U Toronto). Pierre has written some interesting papers on a range of topics related to economic development, technological innovation, and the intersection of business and the environment. He argues that it is governmental (regulatory) failures that distort the environmental consequences of corporate behavior, not market failures. Should be an interesting read.

Proponents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) typically consider “business as usual” unsustainable. Building on historical evidence that long predates the modern environmental movement, the contrary case is made that the interplay of voluntary exchange, private property rights, and self-interest has generally resulted in the so-called “triple bottom line” (economic, social, and environmental) through more efficient use of materials and the continual creation of higher quality resources. However, because market processes continually eliminate less competitive firms and tend to concentrate business activities geographically, political pressure brought to bear by adversely affected vested interests often results in the creation of policies that cause greater environmental harm than would otherwise be evident. Environmental CSR proponents often misinterpret these government failures as market failures, and characteristically advocate policies that further distract firms from their core objective and resulting triple bottom line. The article concludes by arguing that the most promising path toward truly sustainable development lies in the unwavering pursuit of profitability within the bounds of well-defined and enforced private property rights.

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Today the SEC voted 3-2 to approve an interpretive release offering guidance to companies on disclosure obligations as they relate to climate change. Commissioners Casey and Paredes voted to reject the proposed guidance.

Everyone can agree that companies may have an obligation under Regulation S-K to disclose risks arising from, among other many things, climate change laws and regulations. But this guidance goes further, urging companies to disclose risks arising from “physical effects of climate change.” This is nonsense on stilts. Leave aside the underlying inanity of the larger enterprise built on the premise that rationally-ignorant and rationally-passive individual investors should read, assess and make active investment decisions on the basis of massive amounts of regularly-disclosed information. Here corporations are asked to disclose “information” about risks to the company posed by future, possible environmental conditions about which the firms know nothing, the science is utterly un-settled and speculative, and the actual physical and economic consequences of which are even less certain. (I put the word information in scare quotes because nothing so speculative and uncertain can reasonably be called information). What possible value could there be to investors (assuming there is any value to investors from disclosure of this type of information anyway) from the sorts of disclosures that would reasonably follow?: “There is somewhere between a 0% and 90% chance that the temperature during either the summer or the winter or maybe-but-not-definitely both will be either warmer or colder by somewhere between 0.01 and 5 degrees sometime within the next 300 years. This may or may not be bad for our business depending on whether it makes our customers richer or poorer, improves or harms our productivity and helps or harms our competitors by more or less than it helps or harms us.”

At least Troy Paredes isn’t buying it and once again stands nearly alone (Commissioner Casey also voted to reject) for common sense in Washington. An extended quote from his statement at today’s hearing:

Second, the release states that companies “whose businesses may be vulnerable to severe weather or climate related events should consider disclosing material risks of, or consequences from,” the “physical effects of climate change, such as effects on the severity of weather (for example, floods or hurricanes), sea levels, the arability of farmland, and water availability and quality.”

The prospect that this guidance will in fact foster confusion and uncertainty about a company’s required disclosures troubles me. What triggers a “reputational damage” or “physical effects” disclosure is far from certain, as is the scope of any such disclosure if and when required. More to the point, reputational damage and the impact on a company of the physical effects of climate change can be quite speculative. There is a notable risk that the interpretive release will encourage disclosures that are unlikely to improve investor decision making and may actually distract investors from focusing on more important information. Here, it is worth recalling that, in rejecting the view that a fact is “material” if an investor “might” find it important, Justice Marshall, writing for the Supreme Court in TSC Industries, warned that “management’s fear of exposing itself to substantial liability may cause it simply to bury the shareholders in an avalanche of trivial information — a result that is hardly conducive to informed decisionmaking.

Also problematic are the interpretive release’s introductory and background discussions on climate change and its regulation. To me, the effect of the discussions is to find the Commission joining the ongoing debate over climate change by lending support to a particular view of climate change. Although the release does not expressly take sides, the release emphasizes the “concerns” and potential harms of climate change and discusses a range of regulatory and legislative developments, along with international efforts, aimed at regulating and otherwise remedying causes of climate change. In particular, the release highlights new EPA regulations, proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation, the Kyoto Protocol (which the U.S. has not ratified), the European Union Emissions Trading System, and recent discussions at the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen. While the release stresses the risks of climate change and ongoing efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and abroad, the release fails to recognize that the climate change debate remains unsettled and that many have questioned the appropriateness of the regulatory, legislative, and other initiatives aimed at reducing emissions that the release features. In short, I am troubled that the release does not strike a more neutral and balanced tone when it comes to climate change — an area far outside this agency’s expertise.

Finally, given that there are more pressing priorities before the Commission, now is not the time for this agency to consider climate change disclosure.

For these reasons, I am not able to support the release before us. Nonetheless, I would like to thank the staff for their efforts and professionalism.

On the bright side, maybe this means the SEC is qualified to investigate the fraudulentdisclosures in the UN IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. On the other hand, the existence of such . . . misstatements in the authoritative global survey of climate change science suggests that, as Troy suggests, this whole endeavor will have few of the intended–and plenty of unintended–consequences.

In his New York Times column, Thomas Friedman advocates “doing the Cheney-thing on climate — preparing for 1%.” He’s referring to Vice-President Cheney’s reported remark: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.”

This 1% doctrine, Friedman contends, is really just a restatement of the well-known and highly influential precautionary principle. In its most famous recitation, that principle states: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” In other words, “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

The problem with the precautionary principle is that it’s literally non-sensical. It says, “If there’s a course of action that involves threats of harm to human health or the environment, take precautions against it.” The problem is that precaution-taking itself threatens harm to human health and the environment. When we devote resources to avoiding one risk, we divert those resources from some other welfare-enhancing use. When we turn away from a cheap risk-creating technology to a more expensive technology that creates less direct risk, we raise the price of the technology and of any goods or services the technology produces. Poor people will be even poorer. And poverty creates gravethreatstohuman healthand theenvironment.

Thus, it’s not enough to look only at the benefit side of precaution-taking. Because tradeoffs are inevitable, we should also consider the costs of precautions against anthropogenic global warming. In a series of Wall Street Journal op-eds, Bjorn Lomborg has detailed some of those costs: less money for sea walls, storm warning systems, and solidly constructed homes in India and Bangladesh; less money for food, medical treatment, and HIV drugs in Ethiopia; less money for fighting malaria in Zambia; less money for schooling and transportation in Vanuatu.

Now it may be worth incurring these costs in order to reduce the risks of anthropogenic global warming. But Friedman’s precautionary principle can’t tell us that. In saying, “Err on the side of precaution-taking,” it gives literally no direction. A far more helpful principle would balance the expected benefits of carbon caps against their very substantial costs (including, of course, the higher costs of heating and cooling this vulgar monstrosity).

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It’s been interesting to observe the responses to the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The emails seem to show leading global warming scientists massaging data to generate the result they prefer (i.e., “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years … to hide the decline”), scheming to squelch opposing evidence (i.e., “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next I.P.C.C. report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”), admitting to a need to hide certain data from critics (“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone”), and even confessing that they were “tempted to beat” up researchers with opposing viewpoints.

The mainstream press and climate policymakers have largely brushed off these emails and have treated anthropogenic global warming as a settled scientific fact. For example, in reporting the story of the climate emails, the New York Times stated that “[t]he evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.” At the White House, Climate Czar Carol Browner dismissed the emails as an irrelevant distraction. And in announcing the EPA’s recent conclusion that carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare (and is thus subject to extensive regulation under existing environmental statutes), EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson deflected questions about the emails by curtly noting that “[t]he science has been thoroughly evaluated.”

What could explain this apparent lack of concern about these emails, which strongly suggest that the scientific evidence has been doctored? An obvious possibility is that the powers that be realize we’re on the verge of implementing policies they’ve long favored — significant carbon caps, either via legislation or EPA rulemaking — and they don’t want to do or say anything that might prevent that outcome.

But we might be able to explain the absence of alarm on less cynical grounds. As Cass Sunstein has observed, when people have to make complicated risk judgments under uncertainty, they frequently fall prey to psychological and social forces that make them wary of questioning the conventional wisdom about particular risks. In his 2002 book, Risk and Reason, Sunstein explained how informational cascades, reputational cascades, and group polarization can collectively cement — and even strengthen — ill-founded risk judgments:

An informational cascade occurs when people with little personal information about a particular matter base their own beliefs on the apparent beliefs of others. Imagine, for example, that Alan says that abandoned hazardous waste sites are dangerous, or that Alan initiates protest activity because such a site is located nearby. Betty, otherwise skeptical or in equipoise, may go along with Alan; Carl, otherwise an agnostic, may be convinced that if Alan and Betty share the relevant belief, the belief must be true. It will take a confident Deborah to resist the shared judgments of Alan, Betty, and Carl. The result of th[is] set of influences can be social cascades, as hundreds, thousands, or millions of people come to accept a certain belief simply because of what they think other people believe. …

In the case of a reputational cascade, people do not subject themselves to social influences because they think that others are more knowledgeable. Their motivation is simply to earn social approval and avoid disapproval. … If many people are alarmed about some risk, you might not voice your doubts about whether the alarm is merited, simply in order not to seem obtuse, cruel, or indifferent. … Sometimes people take to speaking and acting as if they share, or at least do not reject, what they view as the dominant belief. As in the informational context, the outcome may be the cleansing of public discourse of unusual perceptions, arguments, and actions. … Lawmakers, even more than ordinary citizens, are vulnerable to reputational pressures; that is part of their job. They may even support legislation to control risks that they know to be quite low. …

When like-minded people are talking mostly to one another, especially interesting things are likely to happen. If members of a group tend to think that global warming poses a signficant danger, their discussions will move them, not to the middle, but to a more extreme point in line with their original tendencies. … If members of a group tend to believe that for cancer, the serious dietary problem lies in the use of pesticides, those same people will tend, after discussion, to have a heightened fear of pesticide use. All these are examples of group polarization — a process by which people engaged in process of deliberation end up thinking a more extreme version of what they already thought. Group polarization is central to the cascade-like processes discussed here. If like-minded people are speaking mostly with one another, they can end up with intensely heightened concerns about small risks.

Now I’m not arguing that the risks associated with anthropogenic global warming are small. On that matter, I’m agnostic. I do think it’s appropriate, though, to ask whether our climate policymakers and the members of our media elite are beset by the same social forces that influence the masses. Their lack of concern about the climate emails suggests that they may be. Consider, for example, Climate Czar Browner’s response to questions about the emails:

There has been for a very long time a very small group of people who continue to say this isn’t a real problem, that we don’t need to do anything. On the other hand, we have 2,500 of the word’s foremost scientists who are in absolute agreement that this is a real problem and that we need to do something and we need to do something as soon as possible. What am I going to do, side with the couple of naysayers out there or the 2,500 scientists? I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists.

Of course, many of the 2,500 scientists “who are in absolute agreement” are Betties, Carls, Deborahs, Edwards, etc. who have formed their beliefs, at least in part, on the basis of evidence presented by a tainted Alan. And the Carol Browners and Lisa Jacksons of the world are certainly worried about preserving their reputations (not to mention, their jobs)! And they and their fellow policymakers have left their nests of like-minded folks in Washington, Geneva, etc. and convened to form an even larger community of like-minded folks in Copenhagen. Informational cascades, reputational cascades, and group polarization — oh my!

By making it’s declaration, the EPA has unilaterally claimed authority over regulating greenhouse gas emissions (under the auspices of the Clean Air Act) without worrying about legislative approval. After all, why bother waiting for the elected representatives of the citizenry to grant authority that can be obtained by administrative fiat? Instead, claim the authority and risk Congress being able to muster enough votes to overturn the decision. The checks-and-balances version of the old adage: better to ask forgiveness than permission.

To be fair, the US Supreme Court opened the door for the EPA to make this move in its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA (549 U.S. 497 (2007)), a door the Obama administration was all to happy to run through. There is no little irony in the fact that the Court’s majority relied heavily on a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); a report that has been criticized by the scientific community (for example, see here or here–referred by my Nobel-winning atmospheric science colleague Tony Lupo ), and a report which, according to recently-revealed emails between IPCC proponents, intentionally squelched opposing voices.

Although the EPA’s ruling is immediately aimed at increasing fuel economy standards for new cars and light-weight trucks, the broad-sweeping pronouncement that greenhouse gases (presumably of all sorts and from all sources) are a “danger to public health and welfare” portends a much more expansive role for EPA to regulate virtually any greenhouse gas-producing activity…a regulatory reach that would seem unprecedented, and all without so much as a debate in Congress.

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In a move stupider even than Chicago’s foie gras and trans fat bans (on which see Thom here), California appears to be set to ban . . . wait for it . . . big TVs. Environmentalists, those growing enemies of freedom and common sense everywhere, are pushing the ban because large-screen TVs use a lot of power. And by large screen we’re talking 40 inches–not just the giant honkers bigger than most Multiplex screens. And former-libertarian-leaning Arnold is on board.

Here’s a taste:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s governor, has supported controversial proposals by the California’s energy commission to impose strict energy consumption limits on TVs with screens that are more than 40 inches wide.

* * *

The commission argues that television owners would save around $30 (£18) a year per set in reduced energy consumption. The state itself could benefit by as much as $8.1 billion and could drop plans to a new natural gas-fired power station.

“We would not propose TV efficiency standards if we thought there was any evidence in the record that they will hurt the economy,” Julia Levin, an energy commissioner, told the Los Angeles Times.

“This will actually save consumers money and help the California economy grow and create new clean, sustainable jobs.”

I never fail to be impressed by the temerity and economic illiteracy of public officials. Certainly there can be no benefit to anyone in California from watching a large screen TV, so $30 dollars a year in savings is all gain! And why try to align incentives and let people decide for themselves where they might best cut energy use by raising the price of electricity or–better yet–by using dynamic pricing and smart grid technology, when we can just micromanage their choices for them? And, gosh, nothing says “economic growth” like beating up on an existing (mostly foreign–hmmmm, I wonder . . . nah!) industry. Finally–bonus!–by making TV less attractive, we’ll make Californians more productive!

I sure do hope our inevitable health insurance overlords commissioners are as sensible as the California Energy Commissioners.

For a great review of smart grid and its prospects, see this article by Lynne Kiesling in Reason.

(HT: Seth Weinberger)

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I’ve been waiting for my old con law prof to take a political stand I could really get behind, and he finally has. Barack Obama is the only one of the presidential candidates to take a firm stand against this shamefully populistgas tax holiday. Good for you, Prof!

Now, I’m not normally a big tax guy. Taxes generally expand the government’s coffers, enabling the state to do more of the stuff I don’t think it should be doing, and lots of taxes (e.g., capital gains taxes, Sen. Obama) create terrible, wealth-destructive incentives. But not all taxes are created equal. Activities that impose costs that are not borne by the people engaging in the activities – negative externalities, to use economic jargon – may be appropriately taxed. Gasoline consumption, which creates all sorts of negative spillovers, is one of those activities.

A friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for a while came over the other night. I laughed when I realized he’d traded his ridiculous monster truck (he’s a city boy who definitely doesn’t need that much vehicle) for a sensible Honda Civic. “What’s up with the ride?” I asked. “Gas prices,” he replied.

What good greenie (as Hillary is trying to portray herself) or economically astute policymaker (as McCain is trying to portray himself) could think this is a bad thing?